Introduction

Today’s subject, you should be warned, is a sensitive one.

This is a trigger warning.

September 10th, that’s today, is International Suicide Prevention Day … and some of us have had a very close brush with the issues this addresses.

But look, whilst it would be very easy to concentrate on suicide on Suicide Prevention Day … this is International Suicide PREVENTION Day … and it’s on the best case we know of in Scripture of suicide PREVENTION that we want to concentrate on.

As Christians in a world where this is the source of so much preventable suffering, it seems inconceivable that we shouldn’t address this from Scripture … where the heroes of faith even describe their own experience of despairing of life.

To think that Scripture lacks helpful things to say in this area would be wrong, a shrinking back from reality and an abandonment of souls the Lord wants us to be able to help.

I think we need to say this: for many people they do a great job but suicide isn’t the sole preserve of the Samaritans.

Bible believing people are called upon to be active in its prevention and cure too.

So we are NOT going to evade our responsibility to engage with this thorny and often painful subject … rather we’re going to consider first whether the Bible actually says this is a sin, then how it arises and where it comes from and then how we can actually help.

And we’re doing that in the firm conviction that not addressing hard subjects with good, gracious Biblical wisdom is part of what makes our world a broken place.

God has got it covered – and we are going to be off memo ourselves if we don’t let His light shine into this often quite really dark place.

So why are we all hush-hush about it … do we suspect this is an unforgiveable and shameful sin that God’s grace won’t extend to, and do we therefore feel we’re helpless with nothing to offer?

If we are going to clear the ground for our Bible text today we need first of all to tackle a particular knotty, lurking question head on … so let’s just rip this up first.

For the Christian this is very often the unspoken question that lies in a corner of the brain causing low-lying but continual consternation.

1)   Is suicide the unforgivable sin?

We’ve got this idea from somewhere that people who’ve died by suicide are like Judas and have committed an unforgiveable sin.

In the UK under so-called ‘Christendom’ that idea flowed over into a situation where those who’ve taken their own life are stigmatised, can’t be buried in ‘consecrated ground’ … and all that stuff.

Like me be quite frank, this is the sort of garbage that goes very bad on you if you don’t get it out and sort it out … we need to do that sensitively but also clearly and decisively.

So, let’s be gently clear about this matter in our own minds because if we’re not it will colour every thought we have and every response that we make on this subject.

The first thing we need to establish is that when it comes down to it, there Is an unpardonable sin but this isn’t it.

A)  Jesus defines the unpardonable sin, Mark 3: 22-30

What’s happening in Mark 3 is that Jesus is up in Galilee preaching the Kingdom of God and doing the miraculous signs of the Messiah, when …

“the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”

Mark 3:22

Jesus dealt with that for His disciples using the principle that a house divided against itself cannot stand, but concluded His discourse on that matter by saying:

Mark 3:28-30:

“Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter,

 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.””

So it is the case that the Lord tells us what the only unpardonable sin mentioned in Scripture really is.

It is to take the position that Jesus, His proclamation of God’s Kingdom and His substantiating it by the works prophesied as authenticating the Messiah are of demonic not Divine origin.

Now that might sound an uncommon thing to do, but I have certainly heard it done occasionally, I have to admit.

However, there in that one situation where Jesus defines the unforgiveable sin it has nothing, zero, zilch to do with a person taking their own life.

Ah, someone says, but it must be an unpardonable sin because it is following the example of Judas … who was one of the bad guys.

So, OK, let’s just look at that, because, honestly …

B)   It’s just a coincidence that Judas committed suicide

Let me put it like this for you: Judas was also fiddling the offering bag.

Would that make church treasurers who dipped into the church’s money guilty of an unforgiveable sin?

Sin, yes.

But beyond redemption?

Judas, in common with you and me and ALL the disciples committed sin … but … unforgiveable sin?

You will remember that Peter denied Jesus in the Lord’s hour of greatest need … but he was forgiven.

So, yes, Judas took his own life out of despair and we conclude it’s because he had betrayed Jesus, but the Bible says it’s because he had been indwelt by Satan. 

Judas is the only person in the New Testament where it is actually said that Satan specifically entered into him. 

So, in many ways we might say Judas is such a unique case. 

He was not clean, Jesus says. 

Judas is such a unique case that we shouldn't explore the question through the lens of Judas Iscariot.

There is far too much else going on there to muddy the waters.

But if this is not the only unforgiveable sin we’re told about … is it even always a sin?

C)   Any breach of any commandment is a sin

Our Bibles tell us that all breaches of God’s commandments are sin, and because of that taking our own life COULD be a sin because it COULD be construed by us as a self murder, BUT …

Is this sad situation we may have in mind actually a breach of a commandment?

The act of suicide is mentioned only six times in the whole Bible.

Strikingly, and this is surely SO oustanding a fact we’ll have to grapple with it, when death at a person’s own hands is mentioned there is no moral evaluation voiced as to whether it is right or wrong.

Now, there are those who want to argue that the sixth Commandment … the one about murder … applies.

But that Hebrew word is

רָצַח (ra.tsach) 'to murder'

In the cases of seeking to end one’s life in Scripture (of which there are six) that word doesn’t get used.

So, firstly …

1.     Abimelech’s self-inflicted death is described Judges 9:50–57, but the account doesn’t use the word for ‘murder’ used in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 but the word 

מוּת (mut) 'to die'

2.     Of Samson Judges 16:28–30 uses the same word as Judges 9 used of Abilmelech when Samson prays to the Lord for the strength to bring the temple roof down: “And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.”

מוּת (mut) 'to die'

It's the same word in the next verses when it talks about the Philistines he killed … which of course was a big part of what God had actually called Samson to do.

Not a murder in 10 Commandments language.

3.     Saul famously took his life in military defeat when his armour bearer refused to perform the service for him in 1 Sam. 31:1–6 … but the word for the act proscribed in Exodus 20 is not used describing what happened there and neither is it the one used in either 2 Samuel 1:1–15 or 1 Chronicles 10:1–13 where there are other accounts of the same event.

מוּת (mut) 'to die'

These acts of self-killing so far don’t use the word for ‘murder’ used in Exodus 20

4.     The fourth Biblical account retells the situation when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not taken and despaired of life and in 2 Samuel 17:23  he went home and our English translations say he hanged himself but the Hebrew word is 

חָנַק (cha.naq) 'to strangle'

He strangled himself … again not the word in the Ten Commandments

Finally in the Old Testament we read of …

5.     Zimri in 1 Kings 16:18–19 whose rebellion ended when he saw the game was up and burned the King’s house down over him.

Again the word used here is מוּת (mut) 'to die' … and not the word in the prohibition against MURDER in the Ten Commandments.

Now, there is another incidence of taking one’s own life in the Bible but it is the suicide of Judas and we’ve dealt with that already.

I am NOT going to say suicide is OK … you may be forgiven for thinking I was … but the stunning fact is that there is no direct judgement passed on it as a discrete act in itself in the accounts of its occurrences in Scripture.

We may well want to say that despair can be a wobble of faith … but that’s a different thing altogether.

d) Faith wobbles, human agency and salvation

i) Wobbles

Let’s be clear … right across a believer’s life, faith can wobble but salvation is preserved.

The Lord is well aware of the frights of the flock when He speaks in John 10 of being the Good Shepherd Who ensures that none of His flock can be plucked from His hand.

We – I think parents and pastors in particular – often have a weak hold on the extent of God’s grip on a soul that he’s saved.

ii) Loss of agency

Moreover, we need to take account, against that background of faith wobbles that so often there is not agency in the person doing this taking of one’s own life.

So often this arises because over time or even out of the blue there has been a shift in mental state and (as we say) that person is totally not themselves.

a.     Where do suicidal ideas come from?

i)               Circumstance-induced despairing of life

At a time when he was deeply afflicted and felt overwhelmed, none other than the great Apostle to the Gentiles not only despaired of life itself but felt himself to be under God’s capital judgement.

I know it’s hard to accept that as a believer, but just take a fresh look at what he ACTUALLY says as he writes to that church, he has been necessarily hard with and which he is writing to attempt to reconcile … he opens his heart to them:

2 Corinthians 1:8-9 “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,[a]about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”

We really are going to concentrate on that shortly, but first we need to acknowledge that there’s also …

ii)             Illness-induced despairing of life

Psalm 88 – not quite all the symptoms we’ve learned to recognise in clinical depression there, but close to it!

But it is of Psalm 38 that we read this by George Stein in the The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 196 , Issue 4 , April 2010 , pp. 309

“One of the many purposes the psalms served was to console the sick. These are known as the sickness psalms. There are only six such psalms and two describe quite severe depression (Psalms 38 and 88). Psalm 38 is a good example, but for reasons of space only those verses which describe key depressive symptoms are included here.

6 ‘I am utterly bowed down and prostrate, all day long I go around mourning’ – depressed mood.

8 ‘I am utterly spent and crushed: I groan because of the tumult in my heart’ – despair, anxiety.

10 ‘My heart throbs, my strength fails me: as for the light of my eyes – it has gone from me’ – tachycardia due to anxiety, anergy, anhedonia?

13 ‘But I am like the deaf I do not hear: like the mute who cannot speak

14 ‘Truly I am like one who does not hear and in whose mouth there is no retort’ – sensory inattention, inability to concentrate, with depressive mutism or psychomotor retardation.

18 ‘I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin’ – guilt.

The person may be experiencing an episode of psychotic depression as additional five verses describe enemies who are plotting his end: 12 ‘Those who seek my life lay their snares, Those who seek to hurt me speak of ruin, and mediate treachery all day long’ – they may be real enemies or conspiracy theories with auditory hallucinations and thoughts of death through murder.”

George Stein is the author of ‘Suicidal thoughts and planning in the Book of Tobit – psychiatry in sacred texts’ which you’ll find in:
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 221 , Issue 3 , September 2022 , pp. 552 where Stein identifies that five of the six characters in this intertestamental Jewish book have intense depression with serious suicidal planning and intent, and he has a new book coming out in 2024 so if you happen to be professionally interested as a believer, George Stein might be a name to be aware of.

And Stein concludes on Psalm 38:

There is probably sufficient depressive symptomatology here to diagnose a DSM–IV major depression (five key symptoms, one of which is depressed mood). Such a combination of symptoms in this psalm may suggest that the author had had major depression himself, as it is unlikely that he would be able to render them so faithfully otherwise.

Certainly, if that guy in Psalm 38 turned up in a congregation I was leading we’d soon be having the conversation about seeing the GP for a blood test, and it seems that secular psychology would reinforce that idea.

iii)           Demonically-induced despairing of life

In Mark 9 a despairing parent came to Jesus and described his son’s terrible case.

This took place at Caesarea Philppi which is way up north from the Sea of Galilee the place was called Banias.

There is a deep well there and a cave and in the first century when Jesus was there, there was a shrine to the Greek deity Pan there, and the well was supposed to be the entry to the underworld … lots of demonic stuff went on in that dark place.

So along came this man from that background and described the situation of his son.

The boy was demonised, he said:

Mark 9:22-26 “ “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”

26 The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out.”

·       We need to be clear that there are situations of despair where external circumstances are the issue.

·       We need to be clear that there are situations where illness is the issue.

·       But we need to be clear that there are situations like this in the world today too, we don’t conclude this is always the case but we are aware that there may be situations where people have laid themselves open to this sort of causation, where nothing the psychiatrist can say to them or the doctor can prescribe for them is going to help.

And this last situation is where the Lord Jesus gets very much more directly involved in overcoming the fruitless deeds of darkness.

Let’s be totally clear:

Deliverance from the darkness and brokenness of this fallen world in ALL its forms is the business of the King, and of the Kingdom of God in this world.

But what of a believer, afflicted in any of these ways, has succeeded in taking their own life?

iii) Salvation impacts

Taking your own life is pretty decisive, of course, and disturbing to contemplate, so it’s natural to ask whether that person could be saved.

But … really?

Have a think about this: what if a man died when he was coveting, or lusting, or not honouring his father or mother … or any other one of those Ten Commandments?

Be careful now with this … it is not so much sins (discrete, individual acts) that lose your soul, but the failure to repudiate sin from your heart because you’ve taken the Lord at His Word.

We’re really getting to the heart of the matter here, you see?

You might think that someone who dies with any unconfessed sin is in a bad place, but actually there is forgiveness with God for ALL a saved soul’s sin … and they’re saved by faith-driven repentance, the repudiation of sin from the heart.

Now that will CLEARLY affect a person’s relationship with sins … but we don’t need final absolution to make sure we get to glory, we do need our sin forgiven though.

And that can be very important when we are thinking about what to make of self-harm and despairing of life.

Now, just before we move on from this question perhaps we need to notice that in a proportion of cases this tragic outcome often arises because people lose hope of getting help.

I was with a person at real risk for this reason just last week … you won’t be able to think who it is so please don’t try … who is in chronic pain and desperate because they feel they cannot get any help where it should be available.

I can’t get that help for him – but it doesn’t mean that I and others on the scene are completely unable to help that guy.

You see I think there’s an extent to which the prevention of suicide is to a large extent a matter to be shouldered by SOCIETY as a whole, with each one of us needing to play our part in this shared responsibility.

We’ve raised the question as to whether committing suicide is an unforgiveable sin, but what about standing back knowingly from a person who is desperate without TRYING to help … certainly if that person is a believer but even more so if that’s person’s soul is not safe yet?

Some of you may be carrying guilt here that you shouldn’t be because we CAN’T always see it coming and we CAN’T always prevent it ourselves.

Those statements are just the truth.

But instead of standing back and tutting at those who have despaired of life, we do need to ask ourselves as a society …

D)  Is not bearing the burdens of the tempted the unforgivable sin?

It’s to followers of Christ now that I’m addressing this point but … if God promises to provide a way of escape and we were supposed to be that way of escape, then we bear a huge responsibility. 

We might even say we bear a responsibility for our sin that we didn’t do whatever we could to get alongside and go out of our way to help that person and get them what further help they needed.

Now, Paul was quite frank … so let me be quite frank, I’ve got a person I continue to blame myself for over their self-inflicted death.

The facts are, that the man on my mind DIDN’T pick up the phone when I wish he had done.

You can’t always do all that you’d have wanted to.

I know that.

We need to be realistic.

But if you still want to back away from someone who is struggling, think of this:

If you haven’t read the parable of the Good Samaritan recently, it might be worth giving it a pull.

What sort of difference, just in and of itself, would it make to that desperate person if they knew that we would take all the inconveniences that were necessary to hold them up.

Well, we do need to realise that there are times when we’ve done all we can and we can’t prevent it, but all the time we should take seriously making the attempt to do so, and we therefore need to know where this hard to understand impulse to take one’s on life is coming from.

We often, confronted with this sad circumstance want to ask ‘Why?’

You won’t always know why in any given case, even when there’s been a note that’s been left supposedly explaining it, because such a note will very often have been composed by a mind already disturbed.

iv)         How can we help?

The clear and consistent message of the Bible is of the complete and full forgiveness of sins (past, present, and future—known sin and unknown sin) through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

As he seeks in 2 Corinthians to reconcile with the Corinthian church which he has rebuked firmly in 1 Corinthians, complete and full forgiveness of past sin is VERY much on the Apostle’s mind.

And here to those Corinthians, as he seeks to reconcile them, Paul confesses his own wobbles, his own experience of others stepping in for him and the gloriousness of God’s merciful deliverance in response to the prayers of many.

So here’s that text:

The text

Paul states both the reason for and the purpose of this despairing experience in HIS case in 2 Corinthians 1:8-11 but let’s take it section by section.

1)   Paul’s experience of despairing of life

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. 

We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.

 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. 

A)  What caused this despairing of life itself– troubles in Asia?

In the NT this expression τῆς γενομένης ἐν τῇ Ἀσίᾳ … that which came about in Asia …

always refers to the Roman province of Asia. 

The Roman province of Asia made up about one-third of modern Asia Minor and was on the western side of it.

Whereabouts was it then?

Asia lay to the west of the region of Phrygia and Galatia.

Modern translations tend to use the words “the province of” which aren’t in the original text to help the modern reader understand that this does not refer to what we know as the continent of Asia.

So can we identify the situation Paul was in when he was there so we can understand better?

2 Corinthians was written from Macedonia in about 55 AD. Paul is generally believed to have written 2 Corinthians from Macedonia a year or so after writing 1 Corinthians, which means it was written during his third missionary journey.

So what could have happened in Asia before that, for him to be referring to here as the troubles in Asia that dragged him so low?

It could be a reference to the troubles he faced BEFORE he ever got to Corinth in the first place … and he’s using those troubles to prove that the Holy spirit was powerful through his ministry ALONGSIDE his sufferings and from the very first.

Now, Troas is referenced several times in Scripture, beginning in Acts 16:8, where Paul (2nd Missionary Journey) received a vision of a man pleading with him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us” (v.9). 

Paul would make use of the harbour at Troas on several occasions in his travels in preaching the gospel message.

But on the way to Corinth in the first place, on his second missionary journey, Paul had in fact suffered a ministry crisis and loss of the direction and, as far as he could see at the time, the purpose of his ministry both on the way to and then finally at Troas.

You see, he’d set out from Antioch after a major disagreement with a gentle good man full of the Holy Spirit, Barnabas the Levite from Cyprus and made for his own home city of Tarsus … where nothing good seems to have happened.

But then moving on from there they visited existing churches in Derbe, Lystra and Iconium, passing through with the express missionary purpose of preaching the Gospel in Asia and Bithynia but the Spirit stopped them from going into either of those places … so they pressed on and (again no churches planted enroute) they passed by Mysia and ended up on the beach at Troas wondering what on earth they were supposed to be doing and where on earth they were supposed to be going.

So there was the great apostle, having fallen out with a very good man, with a good team in Silas and Timothy at his back, having come to the end of the road of their planned and purposed mission.

Nothing good to report, having apparently wandered aimlessly with God saying ‘no you can’t go there … or there … or there …’

With his former way of life in Judaism and his bust-up with that very good man Barnabas who’d picked him up and introduced him to the church a Jerusalem when he was first converted, vouching for him and getting him accepted by the human founders of the church and partnering with Paul in establishing the Gentile mission emanating from and supported by the church at Antioch.

Now, that’s my understanding of the situation but I’ve made so much of that because most commentators reckon that wasn’t the crisis Paul refers to here but point to the riot at Ephesus which led to Paul concluding his three-year ministry there and was visiting the churches in Macedonia as he made his way to Corinth after writing 1 Corinthians and after he met Titus, who had returned from Corinth with news about the church there and given Paul an update about how they’d received Paul’s first letter, 1 Corinthians.

For me, here's the thing:

The central theme of 2 Corinthians is the relationship between suffering and the power of the Spirit in Paul’s apostolic life, ministry, and message. 

Paul’s opponents had questioned his motives and his personal courage. 

They argued that he had suffered too much to be a Spirit-filled apostle of the risen Christ. But Paul argues that his suffering is the means God uses to reveal his glory (1:3–4, 11, 20).

It makes so much more sense to me that Paul would be referring in that context to a period of trial that preceded his church-planting ministry amongst them.

Much more sense than one after it when he got kicked out of yet another city where a successful missionary church continued in existence … which would not have been a crisis for Paul in terms of his point and purpose.

And it is the restoration of a sense of point and purpose that Paul seems to identify in 2 Corinthians 1:8-11 as the crucial issue in the resolution of his crisis of despair and the re-affirmation of his ministry.

So …

B)   What caused this despairing of life itself – ‘great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure’

So, if I’m right about this … it is a crisis in ministry, the fear God has now at last abandoned him, by the look of it stopped leading and guiding him and letting him alone …

It appears to be the sense that his relationship with God has been disrupted and that can only mean that he has somehow offended very seriously against the saviour and redeemer of his soul … he knows all too well that it is sin that separates and distances a person from God.

And THAT is a burden he finds too hard to bear.

He has set out with purpose on a pre-declared mission to preach the Gospel in Asia.

God Himself has barred his path as effectively as the Angel of the Lord stood in the path of Balaam’s ass.

And here he is now at the end of the road where it meets the beach with his team at his back, frustrated and rearing to go, but …

Worse that that though … only sin can have separated Paul from God and grieved the Holy Spirit to have alienated Him in such a way, and the implication of that for Paul seemed obvious.

And this will have added to his despairing of life quite considerably.

            c) What caused this despairing of life itself -  a real sense of God’s judgement and of doom

Grk “we ourselves had the sentence of death within ourselves.” Here ἀπόκριμα(apokrima) is being used figuratively.

No actual official verdict had been given, because neither after the flight from Ephesus (if you go for that understanding of the situation) nor by the beach at Troas was he under arrest let alone under sentence of the courts, but in light of all the difficulties that Paul and his colleagues had suffered, it seemed to them as though such a verdict had been issued against Him by heaven’s court!

The sentence of unremitted sin, sin not under grace, was death … as Paul wrote in Romans 3 later.

You see that sentence of death he feels is not in the court but in himself:

ἀλλὰ αὐτοὶ ἐν ἑαυτοῖς τὸ ἀπόκριμα τοῦ θανάτου ἐσχήκαμεν

However, your translation there may seek to make sense of the original, it was very plainly ἐν ἑαυτοῖς ‘in ourselves’ that the sentence was felt.

And that is no uncommon feature of a pathology that leads to suicidal ideation, planning and desperate action.

Paul despaired of his life because of the events that had occurred in the province of Asia, the great pressure this put upon him which we felt at that point was beyond his ability to endure because of what he supposed he had lost and how precious what he’d lost had been to him … and then the accompanying sense of doom because he concluded this must mean that God was in some very serious way judging him for something and had sentenced him to death for his faults.

Now those are certainly not uncommon features of the mindset of people whose despair at life we would very much like to help them turn back.

Well the good news is this.

For Paul it HAS been turned back and he is back to the life he previously led and the usefulness to God and to others he had previously enjoyed.

And the key to his understanding is that all the while he felt abandoned and beyond God’s care, God was all the while working out a very clear purpose.

2)   Paul’s discernment of its purpose

v. 9b “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead …”

That we “might not put confidence in ourselves.”

πείθω – in this context it means to trust, have confidence, to be confident.

As he stood lonely at the quayside or by the dockside at Troas, Paul was feeling that he was alone without God in this situation … abandoned and alone and incapable.

Now it doesn’t stretch the thinking apparatus over-much to realise that trusting in yourself to the extent you really shouldn’t is going to militate against trusting your life to God … that thing we call ‘faith’.

Paul had come through all manner of challenging experiences by the time we get to Acts 16.

And he is CERTAINLY going to come up against them as he gets onto a boat and sets sail for Philippi, then Thessalonica, Berea, Athens then Corinth!

He establishes the authenticity of his ministry in the eyes of the Corinthians with explicit references to the sorts of things he’s had to endure in those places for the sake of the Gospel … sufferings that the Corinthian opponents and false teachers are trying to portray as evidence that Paul is NOT an authentic apostle, whilst (it appears) very much trusting in their own abilities rather than in God.

Paul is saying that he went through this experience very much under the tutelage and the training of the God Paul thought had abandoned him and judged him but all the while was utterly trustworthy in the extent of His grace, who WAS to be trusted and had not abandoned or declared a death sentence on the Apostle at all.

Paul now saw the PURPOSE of this experience given what he now knew would lie ahead of him, and that supportive and sustaining experience of God’s care through hard times now filled Paul (who was again in the wars as he wrote) with ever-living hope.

3) Paul’s gratitude and hope

v. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. 

Paul’s understanding of God as his people’s deliverer should have been well-rooted and well-established from what Paul knew of Israel’s history.

But Paul had trouble in that perplexing experience that led to Troas in reading his current personal experience in view of God’s dealing with god’s people in the past.

You can see how this happens.

When there’s no physiological explanation for how this despair of life has arisen, it is often that the size of the problem on the screen of our minds has grown very much bigger than the size of God’s grace up there.

Or bigger than our awareness of God, our attention to him and both our experience of him (remember Paul had met the glorified lord on the Road to Damascus after all) and the history His people had enjoyed with Him delivering them in the past.

Now, that may well be no use to you when you’re in the pits of things.

I get that.

But Paul has come through the pits.

Paul is aware of the bigger reality again and of the PURPOSE which makes sense now of what was a horribly meaningless and desperate time way back when it happened.

And the key to that may well have been due to the Lord stepping in with that fresh vision of the man of Macedonia where the Lord commissioned Paul for the mission to Europe … but given where Paul takes us immediately afterwards there may well have been a further aspect to this which bears heavily on our reflections on this World Suicide Prevention Day …

4)   The role of God’s people in Paul’s conflicts

Paul is clear now that (as he puts it in 2 Corinthians 3:4-5) “such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: 5 not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;”

Here’s what Paul learned through that terrible experience: ‘our sufficiency is of God’.

So now back in our text in chapter 1 we find him saying that what that hard experience God brought him THROUGH has taught him is a hugely important lesson:

On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers. 

He will “deliver us, the One on whom we have set our hope.”

Yes.

Absolutely.

But actually Paul is totally clear that this will happen: “as you help us by your prayers.”

I really do think that this is a ‘brethren pray for us in general’ sort of comment.

It does seem to be the general dependence on God which Paul senses his need of that is in his mind here.

But one day I hope I will be able to speak freely of situations where people have been on the brink of the most desperate of acts, where all that could be done was to turn urgently to God in prayer, at which point something absolutely unexpected and against the flow of events has occurred … and that person lives to praise God today.

When you feel you’re in a situation and there’s nothing you can do, our God is the God of the miraculous, and He certainly is still in business for the sort of thing he did once for Paul in the experience of His willing servants to this day.

On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers. 

You are NEVER beyond the help of this God if you turn to Him trustingly in powerlessness, under extreme pressure and in despair.

NEVER.

And the end product Paul sees in his hard experience, but helped by God’s people, will be …

5)   God’s Glory in suicide prevention

“Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favour granted us in answer to the prayers of many.”

The Christian knows - at least in their better times - that there is a purpose being worked out through their lives by their living and loving Father in Heaven.

It certainly doesn’t look like that at the time.

The clouds fill our eyes and there’s only darkness … but, if you remember, it was a pillar of cloud that led the Israelites through the Wilderness.

So once he was through his dark days, Paul is looking for that point and that purpose again … 

Conclusion

And as he looks back at that dark time in his life he identifies a set of things that he can see the Lord was even in the darkest days working out through it.

Of course Paul’s experience was Paul’s and no-one else’s … but there are themes that we see are relevant for those who make it through, which God was also cementing in Paul for his greatest good.

i) An end to self-sufficiency.

‘Our sufficiency is of God’

ii) Confidence in God’s future deliverance as necessary, v. 10

‘He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again’

iii) Fellowship in prayer and mutual support in the people of God, v. 11a

“On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers’

v)              Rejoicing as the prayers of many are answered, v. 11b

“Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favour granted us in answer to the prayers of many.”

My friends it IS international Suicide PREVENTION Day.

The Bible is not silent on these matters.

The experience of so many people around us is bound up tight in the sort of challenge Paul himself faced with this experience.

And our Bible both gives us a responsibility at least to pray but also to help people currently living in such despair.

May He show mercy.